A2 Milk's push into China bolstered

A2 Milk's push into China bolstered by results of
human clinical trial in that country

By Fiona
Rotherham

April 19 (BusinessDesk) - Specialty milk
marketer A2 Milk has bolstered its push to sell more
products in China through a recently completed human
clinical trial comparing the gastrointestinal and cognitive
effects of consuming milk containing the A1 beta casein with
that of the A2 variant on people with self-reported lactose
intolerance.

The results of the Chinese study were
published this month in the Nutrition Journal and are due to
be released at a Beijing press conference late tomorrow by
the company.

It’s part of a bid by A2 to get more
credible scientific validation of its marketing claims, that
have been in contention since the late 1990s, that its
products might be better for people intolerant to standard
cow milk.

Cows naturally produce more than 200 different
proteins with beta-casein comprising about 30 percent or 2.5
grams per glass. The A2 beta-casein was originally in cattle
when first domesticated and the A1 beta-casein arose from a
later genetic mutation in European cattle.

A2 Milk’s
marketing material claims A1’s BCM-7 can trigger
inflammation in the body that could “potentially” lead
to medical problems such as irritable bowel syndrome, autism
and schizophrenia but until now it’s had no hard
scientific evidence from human clinical trials to back that
up.

The Chinese study of 45 Han Chinese people compared
the impact of consuming milk with the A1 beta-casein with
that of milk containing only the A2 variant over a
three-month period.

It found milk containing the A1
beta-casein worsened gastrointestinal symptoms and slowed
cognitive processing speed whereas the milk with A2
beta-casein had no adverse effect.

The study’s authors
conclude that “because elimination of the A1 B-casein
attenuated these effects, some symptoms of lactose
intolerance may stem from inflammation it triggers, and can
be avoided by consuming milk containing only the A2 type of
beta-casein.”

A second clinical trial is now underway on
600 people in China, including adults and infants.

In New
Zealand the government is contributing around $1 million to
human clinical trials under the High-Value Nutrition
Challenge in partnership with A2, AgResearch and the
University of Auckland.

The A1 and A2 beta-caseins are
different in structure, and subsequently, the way they are
digested. AgResearch scientist Matthew Barnett told a
High-Value Nutrition Challenge conference last week that
human beta-caseins are more like A2 than the A1
variant.

He said it was important to be able to
demonstrate health benefits from A2 Milk to support charging
a premium for the product. While the rest of the dairy
industry has faced low global prices, A2 Milk has been able
to charge more than double the price of standard milk and
gained just under 10 percent of the fresh milk market in
Australia.

A2's profit for the half-year was up almost 800
percent to $10.1 million on the back of booming demand for
its infant formula powder in China and Australia while
revenue from China alone rose 680 percent to $8.4
million.

Barnett said despite the success of the Chinese
study, the effects of the A1 beta-casein needs to be further
demonstrated in other human clinical trials.

He said the
double-blind cross-over Auckland studies hope to produce
ethically significant evidence on comparisons between the
two milks and better understand why that occurs to back up
A2 Milk’s health claims. MRI imaging will be used to show
changes within a short timeframe as the milk moves through
the gut alongside analysis of compounds in patient's
breath.

The first trial involving 12 people will begin
this year and if the results are positive, a second study of
a larger cohort of around 40 people will then be conducted
based on what data will best “tell the story”, he
said.

A2 Milk is also in the final stages of implementing
human clinical trials on the same digestive impact of the
milk with a leading US biomedical research centre and in the
UK.

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